Chris Donahue
Analyst · JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question
Thank you and good morning. I will briefly review Federated's business performance and Tom will comment on our financial results. Looking first at equities, we closed the first quarter with $80.2 billion of assets, up from $72.5 billion at the end of 2018. Market related gains offset net redemptions which decreased from the prior quarter. Equity mutual fund flows were positive by about $400 million and equity SMA net redemptions decreased to $228 million, which is down from $884 million in the fourth quarter. Higher gross sales and lower redemptions in the Strategic Value Dividend strategy factored into the improvement in the equity fund and SMA results. Equity institutional accounts had about $970 million in net redemptions in Q1 with about $750 million due to BTPS making substantially all of their expected 2019 drawdowns from various Hermes accounts. We had 16 equity funds with positive net sales in the first quarter led by Kaufmann Small Cap, Hermes Global Emerging Markets funds, and several MDT funds. Additional Hermes equity funds that achieved positive net sales in the first quarter included Global Emerging Markets SMID fund, Global Equity ESG fund, and the Impact Opportunities fund. Using Morningstar data for the trailing three years at the end of the year, about one-third of our equity funds were in the top quartile and about two-thirds were in the top half. Five star equity funds at the end of the first quarter included MDT Small Cap Core, Mid Cap Growth, and All Cap Core, the Kaufmann Small Cap, and Hermes Global Emerging Markets. We had 11 four star equity funds including various MDT, Kaufmann, and Hermes strategies. Looking at the Strategic Value Dividend strategy, its objective is to provide a high and growing dividend's income stream from high-quality companies. The domestic fund's 12-month distribution yield of 3.77%, ranked in the first percentile of its Morningstar category at the end of the first quarter. Domestic Strategic Value Dividend strategy had combined mutual fund and SMA outflows of $450 million in Q1, down from $1.5 billion in Q4. Looking at early Q2 2019, results combined fund and SMA net redemptions for this strategy were about $57 million through the first three weeks of April. Overall, combined equity fund and SMA net sales for the first three weeks of April were positive at about $62 million. Now, turning to fixed income. Assets increased by about $1 billion in Q1 to $64 billion, due mainly to market-related gains of just about $2 billion, partially offset by nearly $1 billion of net redemptions. On the fund side, net inflows of about $275 million in total return bond and trade finance combined were offset by outflows of about $535 million in high yield and multi-strategy credit also combined. These outflows included about $200 million from the planned redemptions of BTPS SEED investments in certain Hermes funds. For fixed income separate accounts, net outflow was due largely to the net redemption of about $375 million related to a large client's usage of cash. Our fixed income business has a variety of strategies that are performing well. At quarter end, using Morningstar data for three years, we had eight funds 25% in the top quartile including Total Return Bond and Hermes Multi-Strategy Credit, and 23 funds almost 75% in the top half. Fixed income fund and SMA net sales are positive early in Q2 at about $214 million. In the alternatives category, assets at quarter end were $17.9 billion, down from $18.3 billion at year end. This decrease, however, was due to the success of various Hermes private market strategies that have been reflected as distributions of gains. Now, looking at money markets, total money market assets increased approximately $16 billion in Q1 with funds up about $6 billion and separate accounts up about $10 billion. We saw positive money market fund flows from a variety of institutional and intermediary clients in Q1 as money market strategies continue to offer yields well in excess of average deposit rates. Prime money fund assets increased nearly $8 billion or 18% in Q1 from about $45 billion in Q4 to almost $53 billion here in Q1. Our money market mutual fund market share including sub-advised funds at the end of the quarter was up slightly just below 8%. Taking a look at our most recent available asset totals. Federated as of the 24 and really Hermes as of the 17, managed assets were approximately $490 billion, including $321 billion in money markets; $82 billion in equities; $65 billion in fixed income; $18 billion in alternative; $4 billion in multi-asset. Money market mutual fund assets were $215 billion. Federated and Hermes RFP and related activity levels continue to be solid and diversified with interest in MDT Kaufmann and Global Emerging Markets for equities and multi-sector and short duration for fixed income. Now we began the quarter with about $1.9 billion in net institutional mandates yet to fund with about $800 million in fixed income and $1.1 billion in equities. We expect these wins to fund over 2019 with about $1.7 billion in two separate accounts and $200 million in two funds. Turning to the international side. We announced this week the launch of the next two Federated Hermes funds: the Federated Hermes global equity fund; and the Federated Hermes Global Small Cap Fund. Each fund follows the investment strategy of a similar Hermes fund, which combined have grown to nearly $4 billion. We continue to move forward in registering additional U.S. mutual funds to offer additional Hermes strategies to our customers. We're also actively presenting Hermes strategies with our institutional clients and are working with Hermes to develop opportunities for them to offer Federated strategies to their clients. We are continuing with plans for U.S. expansion in 2019 of the Hermes EOS, Equity Ownership Services Business that features leading ESG stewardship and engagement services to institutional asset owners and pension funds. Hermes EOS assets under administration reached $587 billion at the end of Q1, up from just under $500 billion at year-end. Hermes managed assets at year-end were approximately $44.3 billion, up from $42.6 billion at year-end with market gains offsetting net redemptions. Third-party positive net sales of $263 million were offset by BTPS' net redemptions of about $1.3 billion. Hermes built on the successful Q4 launch of the Global Emerging Markets mid-strategy with more than $50 million of new net sales to bring that fund to over $100 million in assets. Hermes continues to progress the development and growth of a world-class multi-asset credit platform featuring the Hermes unconstrained credit fund and the Hermes European direct lending fund both launched during 2018. We also continue our business development in the Asia-Pac region with a focus on opportunities in Greater China, Korea, Japan and are actively working to establish strategic relationships with select financial institutions to add regional distribution of Federated's investment strategies. This effort complements Federated's European, U.K. and Canadian operations. Tom?